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My Life in Music In October of 1999 I was one of the guest artists at a sacred music conference held at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Dayton, Ohio. It was one of the finest events I've ever been involved in. The participants were all very serious and dedicated church musicians. At the conclusion of the conference there was a banquet dinner, and I was asked to give a short after-dinner speech. I wasn't sure what I would say, but during the dinner several thoughts and experiences came to mind, and I jotted them down. These thoughts seemed to flow into a story about my career and the events that had blessed my life. Recently I decided to write these thoughts down and add to them for a record of my musical career. I also have included at the end some other documents that I had written earlier. It is a privilege to be a church musician. This is no ordinary career. While most jobs and careers are honorable, few afford a person the opportunity to work with art and music and spiritual things. My career has had three major components: 2. The opportunity to meet amazing and wonderful people around the world, people whom I never could have known otherwise. Being an avid correspondent, I have remained in touch with so many people I have met through the years. These people have been teachers, schoolmates, musical colleagues, famous people and not-so-famous people, people who have hosted me in concerts and in their homes, people throughout Europe, South America, and Asia. I have learned so much from them all. 3. Using music as a form of service to others and in worship, which has given real meaning to my work. I don't know how many people can say this about their work. I imagine that not even many musicians can say this about their careers. Week in and week out I've provided music for sacred services. It's kept me busy and very satisfied. Again I've had the rare opportunity of rehearsing and performing serious literature with fine people--adults and kids--for much of my life. I have occasionally thought about changing careers, because there have been some frustrations and some lean times, but when I think of the alternative, there's really no choice. It's been a true blessing for me to have had this career in sacred music. We church musicians are probably not paid what we're worth, considering the training that has gone into it. But the rewards are there anyway. Every time we do a service well, someone notices, and it does matter. My Teachers Of course none of it would have been possible without the support (and constant encouragement/prodding) from my parents, particularly my mother. I've taught music long enough now to know that if the mom isn't nearby to direct the practicing, it won't happen. Herbert Nanney, my organ professor at Stanford, was a one-of-a-kind teacher. I entered Stanford as a chemistry major, but my heart was always in music. He said to me one day, "Why don't you just go into music. It's what you're here for." It was the push I needed, and it changed the course of my life. (I wrote a tribute to him in the spring of 2002 for the Stanford alumni magazine. See Appendix 1.) I also was able to study at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, with Josef Doppelbauer, a fine teacher. I decided that I would do one of the large preludes and fugues of Bach each week while I was with him. I went through much of the standard organ repertoire in the six months I studied there--and lived part of the time in the Schloss Frohnburg, which was used as the front of the von Trapp Family home in the movie "The Sound of Music." John Walker, who went on to become one of the leading organists in the country, was also one of my teachers while at Stanford. His mentorship and attention to detail had a strong effect on me. Employment I was disappointed that the job didn't end in tenure, but I was happy that I found work back in the Bay Area and Palo Alto, which I always wanted to return to anyway. So for the last ten years I've taught part-time at Santa Clara University, played the wonderful organ at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, volunteered in many musical events at my own church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and continued to be a freelance musician around the Bay Area and the world. East Germany Sitting in the Kreuzkirche in Dresden, an older couple bravely introduced themselves to us--they were so anxious to meet some Americans and try their English. We ended up having dinner with them, and I have stayed in touch with them, even staying in their home on return trips. I attended a small LDS service in Dresden on one of the Sundays and was invited into the very modest apartment of one of the families. They gave us for supper the best they had to offer, which wasn't very good. But the love and the warmth from that kind family has remained through the years. Several of these people have come to visit me in California, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. What a happy reunion that was! Rudi Renner Stratford-upon-Avon Jerusalem Miracle at a Christmas Service Close Call at a Wedding Hired by a Murderer My Favorite Organ? The other favorite organ for me has to be the Tabernacle organ in Salt Lake City. To say that I have an affinity for this organ would be an understatement. Any hymn or folk melody played on this organ comes out with the most ethereal beauty. I remember playing it for the first time when I was thirteen years old (as a guest of then Tabernacle organist Roy Darley, whom my mother knew from college days), and in the last few years I have played once or twice a year on the daily noon recital series. I love playing there on Christmas day. I enjoyed playing "The Old Refrain" in August 1985 for my father's 65th birthday, and for my mother's 80th in 2002 I played a medley of lullabies she sang to us when we were young. My Best Gig: Playing for My Own Wedding Music, the Universal Language The Blessing of a Career in Music The Power of Music during 9/11 A Close Call in Leipzig Some Humorous Experiences Interviews with prospective brides are always full of surprises. Recently I had a consultation with a bride and her mother. In demonstrating prelude music, I played "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." The bride and her mother looked at each other, wincing, and said, "Oh, no, not that, that sounds like church!" I think I ended up excusing myself from that job. I played once for a Buddhist temple in Hilo, Hawaii, where an Episcopalian woman had left money for a pipe organ for her church and her gardener's church. The Buddhist priest was concerned about what music would be played, and he instructed me: "No Christian music, please, just Bach." While I was a graduate student at Stanford I was rehearsing the Ives "Variations on America" over and over on the Hradtezky organ in the concert hall on campus. At the same time a construction worker was in breaking up concrete to repair some seating in the hall. The noise from the sledge hammer was driving me crazy, but I had a recital coming up, so I continued practicing. After some time I paused my practicing, and the workman said, "Hey, kid, could you take a cigarette break for a while? That music is driving me crazy!" I never cease to be amazed (or disheartened) at the lack of education of young people in this country. While at UCSB I was asked to demonstrate the Flentrop organ for the big music appreciation class. I played some Bach for them, and when I started playing, a young woman behind me said quite audibly, "Look! He's playing music by hand!" I guess it had never occurred to her that music could come out of anything but loudspeakers, and produced somehow mysteriously. I was invited to play for a memorial at a mortuary in Palo Alto a few years ago. When I asked if the family had any requests, the funeral director said that they wanted "Grand Canyon Suite." I thought it was an odd request, but I took along my copy of "On the Trail," the only music from that suite that I owned. When I arrived, I asked someone in the family again about any requests. Again they said "Grand Canyon Suite." I said, "Yes, that and probably other music as well?" They said "No, just Grand Canyon Suite." So I played "On the Trail" for about 20 minutes of prelude. Everyone seemed to be happy, but it was a lot of donkey braying at that funeral. When they put in a big new Casavant organ at Weidener Hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, I was invited to play a recital for them, including the Widor 5th Symphony and the St.-Saëns Symphony No. 3 with orchestra. The conductor at that time was a man not particularly well liked by the orchestra members. I had prepared the registrations for the organ part on my own. In the dress rehearsal we got to the point where the organ comes in with one of the most powerful C major chords ever written. I had been told to use the full power of the organ, so I did. The sound apparently startled the conductor so much that he somehow lost his balance and fell backwards off the edge of the stage and into the seating below. It's a miracle that he wasn't injured, but it was all the orchestra could do to keep from applauding me. During the performance the next day, everyone held their breath when we reached that same chord. No repeat performance that time... Brazil Beijing Death Valley Appendix 1 "Herbert Nanney, Professor of Music and University Organist" I met Professor Nanney in 1972 when I entered Stanford as a transfer student from BYU. Although I had declared chemistry as my major, my real love was music--specifically the pipe organ, which I had studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg on a previous semester abroad. The first thing I did after buying my chemistry textbooks was to look up Herbert Nanney, professor of music and organist at Memorial Church. I didn't know what to expect, but I was definitely unprepared for this extraordinary personality. For example, I was surprised to learn how approachable he was. Since he held the distinction of a professorship, most people initially addressed him as Dr. Nanney. However, he always corrected them, asking them to call him Mr. Nanney, or, preferably, Herb. My first lessons with Herb were totally illuminating. I may have been pretty good at playing the notes, but he made me realize how much more there was to music than just the notes. He had me work on César Franck's Chorale in E Major, and I still have written in my score the various comments he made to get me to play more effectively: "flare nostrils! heave bosom! suffer! snarl like a dog with a bone!" He was passionate about most everything, and his job was to help his students feel that as well. Herb had conservatory and academic training, had traveled widely, and was amazingly well connected in professional circles. Yet his tastes ran the full range from sacred and classical to theatre and pop. His approach was never contrived or academic, even at a time when there was an almost exclusive emphasis in the music department on Renaissance and Baroque performance practices. Many teachers became so involved with certain details that they couldn't see the forest for the trees, but Herb didn't need to check all the ancient treatises to know how to play a piece of literature naturally and musically. His enthusiasm and ability for playing the organ were legend. Often he decorated hymns at Memorial Church services with Hollywood-style endings he called "MGM Amens." He scandalized us by playing Bach trio sonatas in rumba rhythm. He was the life of every party, improvising whole pieces on people's phone numbers or playing "Happy Birthday" in the style of Bach, Mozart, Debussy, and Stravinsky. When he set about to give a serious recital, however, we felt the depth of his feeling for the music and sincerity of his playing. During that first year at Stanford, my chemistry and physics classes were a real grind, while I found nothing but pleasure in practicing the organ for four or five hours a day in the organ loft of Memorial Church or on the little German tracker organ in the garage behind the Knoll (which then housed the Music Department). When I whined to Herb one day about my chemistry classes, he looked me in the eye and said, "Why don't you pursue a career in music? It's what you love, it's what you're good at, it's what you're meant for." That was all I needed to hear. He literally and profoundly changed the course of my life, and I believe that in one way or another all of his students would say that about him. He wanted each of his students to develop his or her own talents and gifts, to find their own specialties. He often said that he expected his students to play better than he did. He was delighted when we came up with literature or organ stop combinations that he hadn't thought of himself. Herb was always willing and anxious to demonstrate at the keyboard, and anyone who could listen and imitate his playing came out a more interesting and musical performer. One of his greatest assets was his lively imagination--which also made him a spontaneously perceptive and creative teacher, even of pieces that he hadn't encountered before. A favorite story comes from a colleague who was studying with Herb at the same time I was. She was preparing to play two dissonant works by Schönberg and Ives on a concert in Berkeley. When she came to her lesson nearly in tears about a week before the concert, he told her, "Will you stop worrying about the notes and convince us that we can still have orgasms in the 20th century?" These typical one-liners often brought the lesson home better than anything else could. He genuinely loved his students and demonstrated his affection openly. He was also a heavy drinker. This was unnerving to me, even if he could teach and play better after having a few too many than most could sober. Remarkably, he quit drinking during Christmas break after my first quarter and never touched alcohol again in his life. He was on everyone's side. He went to bat when it was job search time, writing enthusiastic letters of recommendation and making personal phone calls on our behalf. In my case, he helped me land a job at UC Santa Barbara when I was fresh out of school. The original pipe organ was installed in Memorial Church in 1901. Although it survived the 1906 earthquake, the console and bench were replaced in a subsequent renovation in the 1930's. For years Herb stored this ornately carved bench at his home. Following his death in 1996, Herb's widow Jean called me to say that he had left the bench to me. I display it proudly now in my home as a treasured souvenir of Stanford and of my time with Herb. The greatest compliment anyone could pay me or any other student was that it was obvious we studied with Herb Nanney. For his influence on me and his inspiration, Herb Nanney remains my most memorable professor. James Welch is on the music faculty at Santa Clara University and concertizes internationally. www.welchorganist.com Appendix 2 [For several years during the 1970's and early 1980's our family had a Christmas tradition of making a handmade gift for someone else in the family, accompanied by a poem or essay. This was my essay from that year. It was called "Woodruff," because we heard about this tradition from our friends the Woodruffs.] "Woodruff" Essay, 1980 I know this is a little late, but better late than never. Actually I was very busy in December: I played five concerts up and down the coast, wrote two articles, one for a Special Interest publication and one for the AGO magazine. I also wrote a new Christmas song on Barb's new poem and also did an arrangement of "Come unto Jesus" for a new LDS publication. So although I didn't get this out in time, I was very busy in other creative pursuits. Mother thought that a good topic for my essay would be the experience of playing at Notre Dame in Paris last summer. I gave this some thought, and I decided to write on musical experiences throughout my life. I can't really isolate one event as more important than another: each was monumental at the time; each was exciting, rewarding, and a milestone in one way or another. I wouldn't say that playing Tournemire at Notre Dame was any more impressive than playing "Wee Wooden Shoes" with Barbie in 1959. Musical training in the Welch family began in the early 1950's with Ann and Jack, who practiced early in the morning, sometimes willingly, sometimes not so willingly. I heard stories about Mrs. Freeney (she used to scribble instructions all over the music), and Mr. Horsepool (Mr. Pony-Puddle, as Jack called him), and Sister Frodsham, and recitals at the ward. The favorite story is about Jack who woke up the household at about 2 a.m. practicing his scales. Mom or dad went out to the living room in Whittier to find out what was going on. Jack had awakened, and figured since he was awake, it was time to start practicing, even if it was pitch dark outside. Ann and Jack usually started their practicing before daylight, but this was going a little far! It wasn't until we moved to La Canada in 1957 that Barbie and I started studying piano with Mrs. Burland. I was in the second or third grade, and Mrs. Burland lived on Hill Street, just a few blocks from the school. We walked to her house after school to have our lessons. It is not surprising that Mrs. Burland became a member of the family, a legend, and an institution. She recognized our talents from the start and devoted years in helping us develop them. Not that mom and dad didn't push and shove too, but Mrs. Burland was special. Hers was the Old School of teaching. We learned to read and to count; we played scales and Hanon and Czerny. It wasn't until I was in college that I realized how important Mrs. Burland had been in my life; she had helped me develop a skill and realize a talent that will stay with me forever. This is a gift indeed. We spent many hours in Mrs. Burland's house over the years. We sat on the back porch reading Superman and Tarzan comics while we waited for our lessons. Mr. Burland puttered around the house smoking a cigar while Mrs. B. taught in the living room. Mr. Burland did most of the cooking, I think. Mrs. B. had a painting and a bust of Beethoven in the piano room, a diploma from a Chicago correspondence course in music theory (with her maiden name, Elsa Klein, on it), and a plaque with a likeness of her teacher Abby d'Averit of whom she always spoke very highly. She told us about when she was young, when she would practice for hours daily, and other such unbelievable tales as the year when she worked on nothing but Bach's Well Tempered Clavier. It wasn't until I stopped by to visit Mrs. B. during the Christmas of 1980 that I thought to ask her if I could see some pictures of her when she was young. She was thrilled to share them with me. She was born in 1900 in Pennsylvania. I saw pictures of her as a girl with her family; recital programs and clippings; Roaring Twenties outfits, clowning with friends on Catalina, Big Bear, San Diego, and Long Beach; and Herb with his Model T's and other flashy cars; Herb's name in lights on various theatres where he was a silent-movie theatre organist. It was like meeting a new person, because Mrs. Burland always seemed so much older to me, especially when I was only 7 years old. It was fun seeing this part of her life and getting to know her better as a person. Mrs. Burland always had big hugs for us. She was concerned about our "finging," wanted us to practice things "forty-eleven times," and said "catch 'em, honey?" when she wanted to know if we had understood a particular concept. She hummed or sang along with almost everything we played, like many performing artists do, I came to learn later in my career. She demonstrated the production of tone by holding up an imaginary length of piano wire and discussing its vibration. On cold, rainy days she sometimes wore fuzzy scuffs while we practiced Clementi Sonatinas. Public performance was always expected of us, and I was astounded when I started numbering the list of my performances, which date from my very earliest years. It was in 1959 at the Sundermans' home when Barbie and I played "Wee Wooden Shoes." She was 5 years old. I played "Rhapsodie Mignonne" by Koelling (who?). I had been "taking" for 10 months. Ann played "Rustle of Spring" as the grand finale to the recital. I remember making quite a big hit at that recital. After that time Mrs. B.'s recitals were held at the Thursday Club in La Canada. We'll never forget those rehearsals, lining up in exact order and playing an elaborate kind of "musical chairs" as we each took our turns on stage. Some years we did two-piano work. In 1961 I played the 2nd and 3rd movements of Mozart's Coronation Concerto, Mrs. B. at the second piano. Barb played the "Rhapsodie Mignonne" that year (age 7). We played from memory, of course. Other names on the recital program: Melanie Anderson, Brent Anderson, David Bowles, Scott Seamons, Marian Griffin, Lauralee Peterson--half of La Canada Ward. I have all of these programs catalogued. Taking lessons, practicing, and playing in recitals and at church were facts of life. There wasn't any question about it; we just did it. (Maybe mom will have a little different outlook on how automatic all of this was.) But I don't seem to find this dedication as much in students today. Have things changed, or is it just my own perspective that has changed, now that I'm on the other end? When I was only 8 or so, I played for Junior Primary, my first professional gig. It was a big deal and I was scared, but I got over it fast. I played some little piece for the very little kids to march in and out to. I remember playing an organ postlude for La Canada Ward Sunday School before I was even 12. I played "Reverie" from the Asper book, and I remember Wavie Peterson rushing up to the organ and gawking, to think that I could be playing the organ. I started playing for Priesthood meeting as soon as I was 12, and ever since then it has been assumed that I would be at the organ or piano bench, whatever the occasion required. Getting us to practice was not always easy. Mother used every tactic known to mothers. We had rules and timers, charts and schedules. There were bribes such as my metronome (which I got in 1959 and still have) and my Parker 51 fountain pen (which I got in 1961 for two months of daily practice). I still have that pen, having carried it with me everywhere in the world since that time. Sometimes reason didn't work on us, and neither did bribes, and when we failed to practice, it was mother who realized that not only money and time were going down the drain, but that we were wasting our musical gifts. Rarely, but on occasion, mother would be so discouraged and disappointed in us that she would cry. This always sent me straight in to the piano bench where I would feel deep remorse for having made her cry. I always resolved never to fail her again. Some resolves lasted longer than others, but those were powerful memories, We learned from Keyboard Town, Schaum books, Thompson books, some used first by Ann, then Jack, then me, then Barb, with fingerings written in, names and dates crossed out as each new student came along. We had our favorite songs ("Steam Locomotive") and to this day the pictures and little songs that go along with the pieces are vivid in my mind: Hannah from Montana, Hear Those Lovely Bells, A Box of Quackers, etc. Jack was a little more rebellious, and even called Mrs. Burland "Mrs. Burlap-Sack" once in a while. Although he quit piano, he took up clarinet and oboe. We will ever remember Mr. "Froggie" Logsdon, Mr. Keller who came to the house in a very old car to teach Jack clarinet and things called "embouchure." Jack and I played pieces like "Cavatina" in church. Jack played in the "Dicksy Six" and marched in the band. So did I, playing the French Horn. There were many memorable times under Mr. Coe, "challenging" other players, and riding on buses to exotic places like Hawthorne for marching band festivals. I played Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor for my 6th grade graduation in 1962. I had only had the cast removed from my leg a few days before, and I limped up the steps to the piano where I played in front of all the three graduating 6th-grade classes. Of course Mrs. B. was there to clap and hug. When I was 11 or so, they finally let me start playing the organ. Evidently I had been fascinated with it for years, watching Mary Stewart play the old Conn at La Canada Ward. Finally I started organ lessons with Grace Brown, the stake organist. I was very impressed by the old pipe organ at their home on Moncado in Glendale. I usually had my lessons on the Wicks at Glendale Stake Center, where I heard Alexander Schreiner play a recital in 1961 and got his autograph on my program. I slaved away on those organ lessons, doing my finger substitutions and pedal exercises. I spent hours down at the church playing Bach's Eight Little Preludes and Fugues, stumbling my way out of the spooky dark chapel after I was finished practicing and running all the way home for dinner. Sometimes I remembered to take a flashlight. I assumed that what Mary Stewart and Miriam Owen played in church was great literature, and I too was determined to become a great organist. My broken leg in 1962 put an end to that for a while. It wasn't until I went to BYU that I started serious organ studies. In all the intervening years I played for church and picked up a few things here and there. Mom took me to some concerts at Herrick Chapel at Occidental College. Ladd Thomas was a graduate student then, and I was duly impressed. Little did I think that I would be one of his colleagues in a few years. Dad took me to a concert at a church in Pasadena (All Saints' Episcopal, probably) where E. Power Biggs played, among other things, Charles Ives' "Variations on America." I remember being astonished and amazed by the "trumpets en chamade" at the back of the church. It made me want all the more to be an organist. Dad and I also went over to Hunter Mead's home in Pasadena. I was fascinated with this funky old place, which had a theatre organ built all over the living room. I had some E. Power Biggs records, some Richard Purvis tapes on open reel, and I listened to these over and over for inspiration. I enjoyed accompanying Mrs. Barkman's glee clubs in junior high. In seventh grade I played Percy Fletcher's "Festival Toccata" on the Hammond organ at Lanterman Auditorium for a school talent show. Mom made sure I had a fresh butch haircut for the occasion. I can't imagine that my friends at school enjoyed "Festival Toccata" very much, but it was a great triumph for me. It even warranted a congratulatory telegram from dad which came to the house later that day. In eighth grade I played the Toccata from Boellmann's "Gothic Suite," which the school liked much better because it reminded them of "Phantom of the Opera." It was also that year that the family took a trip to Utah, and mom arranged with Roy Darley for me to play the Tabernacle organ. I played the same Boellmann Toccata, probably quite well. It was the most thrilling thing I had ever done. I think Darley must have been rather amazed that I could sit down and play that for memory, considering how little real training I had had, and having never played such an organ before. It was also in junior high school that we worked on one of the biggest family projects of all history: the Artisan organ. We soldered wires in the attic for months and months. I learned a great deal about electronics and a little about organ construction. We took many drives over to upper Lake Street in Pasadena to pick up parts and get information from funny Mr. Eby. I pored over Artisan catalogues for months. We finally finished the organ, and we even have a family Christmas picture taken around the organ. In the meantime there were always band and orchestra festivals at PCC, piano auditions and merit performances here and there. We were always busy with these. How did we do it? Starting in the ninth grade mom took me over to South Pasadena every week for lessons with Earle Voorhies. He had a big, dark old house on Fletcher Drive, with two grand pianos in the studio. With Mr. Voorhies I went through a lot of literature that has stayed with me to this day. But I was distracted by many things, such as learning to drive cars. Besides, I decided about this time that I wasn't going to be a professional musician anyway. I was going to be a doctor or maybe a lawyer, but certainly not a musician. I got a Yamaha 80 motorbike for Christmas when I was 14, and then I started riding over to South Pasadena by myself. What wonderful freedom that bike gave me! Mom doesn't know how many times I nearly was killed on that bike. But somehow I survived. There must be some reason! I took a few pop organ lessons from Mrs. Gertrude Cain in La Canada during high school. Bob Rigdon studied with her too. I learned some fun Hammond organ tricks from her. She was a real character. And we never did meet Stella Worl, whose ad for piano lessons was in every issue of The Valley Sun for as long as we could remember. I played the Hammond at Prep graduations, and finally I went to college myself. I had an audition at BYU open registration with Parley Belnap. I think I played the Bach Toccata and Fugue in d minor. Brother Belnap was impressed and took me on as a student. I was very enthusiastic and practiced at least two hours a day on the Wicks organs down in the basement of the HFAC. I took my dates down there to let them hear me play Bach and Brahms and Widor and Daquin. Of course I was still going to be a doctor, so I had to take 7 a.m. chem labs as well. But although music was just to be an avocation, I was spending most of my time working on it. I wasn't a music major, but I was learning whole Bach trio sonatas and performing them from memory in recitals at the Provo Tabernacle, while the BYU organ majors were struggling away with much more basic pieces. I don't remember really being strongly encouraged to become a music major; I must have insisted that I was going to be a doctor. I made arrangements to transfer as a sophomore to Occidental College. At the last minute, however, I decided to go back to BYU, mostly so I could go on the Salzburg program in the winter of 1970. Salzburg turned out to be one of the greatest experiences of my life. Not only was I in love (with Gina Belsheim, "Ruby"), but I was a student of Josef Doppelbauer at the Mozarteum Akademie. I practiced 4-5 hours a day, on the piano in the attic of the Steinlechner Hotel, in the basement at the Mozarteum, but mostly on the Rieger trackers out at the Frohnburg (the "Julie Andrews Castle," as we called it) on the Hellbrunneralle. What a beautiful place and time of life for me! Just music and Europe and friends and fun. I learned most of the big preludes and fugues of Bach, one a week, several Franck pieces, etc. Doppelbauer was impressed, but he couldn't figure out why I was doing all this: I wasn't even a serious music student. I knocked myself out riding buses and bikes in the freezing winter to get practice time. I also played organs all over Europe, including in Prague, Germany, Hungary, and who knows where else. It was when I left for my mission in 1970 that I learned what music really meant to me, because for the first time I was completely cut off from it. It was painful to be forced to leave something that was so much a part of me. It wasn't like leaving aside something worldly like a car or a sport. It was ME, it was part of the way I thought. I could hardly get at a keyboard anymore. I don't think the two years without it hurt my career, but I remember how hungry I was for it during that time. Joinville, my first town, only offered me a pump organ in the chapel, and I remember making a tape of Christmas songs and sending it home. I played a concert in Blumenau, Santa Catarina, at the Lutheran Church. A true "pois é": a terrific thunderstorm came up in the middle of the concert and the power went out. So did the lights and organ, and we sat there in the dark and the silence until the power came back on again. I also found friends and organs in Novo Hamburgo, another German town. Gordon Voorhees was my companion, and he loved to hear me play Bach preludes and fugues. I came home in 1972 and went directly to Stanford, having transferred while I was in Brazil. It was quite an experience, those five years at Stanford. I'm sorry I didn't record them all in a journal. I had kept a journal on my mission, but I didn't keep one at Stanford. I do have scrapbooks and programs and letters, but no journal. I started again after I came to Santa Barbara. I started taking lessons from Herb Nanney at Memorial Church. But remember, music was still just an avocation. I was a chemistry major again. But I hated it. I hated physics class, and I actually had to drop out of organic chemistry, rather than flunk. I found myself spending long hours playing the organs at Dinkelspiel Auditorium and at Memorial Church, playing Bach, Mendelssohn, Franck, Vierne, Sweelinck, etc. Herb Nanney was a heavy drinker in those days, and although I loved playing the organ, I decided that I would probably have to transfer back to BYU if he didn't straighten up. Miraculously Herb quit drinking in Christmas of 1972. He offered me the position of Assistant University Organist if I would stay on and become a music major. I did, and with pleasure. Those became the days of frequent recitals all over the Bay Area, shopping for music at Byron Hoyt in San Francisco, season tickets to the San Francisco Symphony, singing Mahler's 8th Symphony with the Stanford Chorus under Seiji Ozawa, master classes, AGO concerts, and other exciting experiences. I was becoming an organist, loving it more all the time. Still I never intended to become a professional organist: I thought I'd finish the degree in music, just so I could say I had done it. Then I'd go back into something honorable, like being a doctor or a lawyer. (I've always had a very hard time making decisions in my life!) But one thing led to another, and I couldn't possibly leave it. It was obvious to me that the thing I spent long hours slaving over, enjoying it, not even being aware of the time, was the thing I should do with my life. I played organ concerts in San Francisco, Grace Cathedral, Oakland, wards and stakes all over, Modesto, Fresno, Air Force Academy, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, you name it. I worked up quite a following for a student. We did "The Order is Love" and "The Fantasticks," and other musical revues with the Stanford Branch. In 1975 Rulon Christiansen and I each played a Vierne Symphony at the Interstake Center in Oakland for the AGO Regional Convention. During several trips to Utah I had some lessons with Alexander Schreiner at Temple Square. I've always loved the Tabernacle organ and the literature that goes with it. People have told me for my whole life that I would certainly be one of the Tabernacle organists some day. I may have aspired subconsciously to that job. In December 1973 Elaine Cannon had Alexander Schreiner arrange a private recital for me at the Tabernacle. That was a thrill, too-sitting down and without a minute of preparation time on that organ, playing for two hours and impressing Schreiner and everyone else present. The pictures Carla took at the Tabernacle got me into some hot water. It wasn't until January 1981 that the heat finally seemed to have died down: an invitation finally came from Robert Cundick to play on the Tabernacle series. Those were the wonderful days of lessons with Herb Nanney, who exhorted us to "flare our nostrils, heave our bosoms," (that was in Franck) and otherwise got his students genuinely excited in their work. I worked with John Walker for a while, too; he was an excellent artist and a good influence on my style. I was driven to create new sounds, learn whole concerts of new literature every month; I played birthday concerts for friends, concerts for every occasion imaginable. While on Oberlin Street I bought a Yamaha upright piano from Chuck Kalin, which I later sold to Barb, and bought my Yamaha grand. I bought and sold a Hammond B-3. I met Dave Wilson and his gang, and we started making recordings. In the summer of 1974 after the brief engagement to Carla I took off for two months in Europe, working on my master's thesis in Salzburg, studying with Jean Langlais in Paris, and playing organs all over Europe. In 1975 I went back to Brazil and played a series of concerts. I have always been on the go, frantically learning music and performing it. But as Maurice Abravanel said in a lecture I once heard, musicians have to compose or perform, as much as they have to eat and breathe. It doesn't even matter if there is an audience or a market-you must perform and create. The good life at Stanford had to come to an end. I was incredulous when I landed the job at UCSB. I was right out of school, no experience. I was in the middle of court reporting school, so sure I was that I wouldn't get a job in music. Oh, ye of little faith. I just drove down the coast one day and they hired me. I reluctantly sold the house at 2067 Oberlin, said goodbye to all my friends and to Barb and Lew whom I left behind in San Jose, and came down to Santa Barbara. But I didn't leave Stanford without playing my "Farewell to Stanford" and "Evening of Encores" concerts, both at Memorial Church. These two concerts are probably the most emotionally satisfying concerts I've ever played; there they were, literally hundreds of my closest friends, coming because they loved me and they loved my music and they loved giving me the gift of letting me share it with them. I was happy because I was in a position where I could share the thing I loved most. I have been fortunate to be able to return to Stanford frequently and play for those same friends. In Santa Barbara there have been fun concerts at the old Santa Barbara mission, musicales at home, carillon concerts in Europe and Jerusalem, two trips to Europe, one to South America, one to Egypt and Israel, even a gig in the Rose Bowl, playing the Rodgers electronic that got the sprinklers turned on it the next morning. I can't quite believe all the places I've been and things I've done in my lifetime thus far. It is music that has taken me to these fascinating places. It has put me in touch with an incredible array of people. Occasionally I have been accused of intentionally remaining unmarried because of my involvement in music. While music has been a most satisfying, fulfilling, and enjoyable occupation, I know that it is not the ultimate in life. Many times I would have traded all the pipe organs in the world for peace of mind and the person with whom I could be comfortable and realize the other plans that I have for my life. But music has helped me experience many emotions and has been richly rewarding in the interim, while I've been sorting out my life and putting it all back together. I do most of my good thinking while I'm drilling at the keyboard. What would I be without music? I would feel very frustrated if I could not translate my feelings and emotions into music and share them with my friends. This brings me back to one of my very first statements, my feelings about playing at Notre Dame Cathedral. It was an incomparable thrill to be there where Louis Vierne and many others had played for centuries, being there alone in the loft the night before, practicing in a cathedral that has heard the world's greatest music since the 12th century or so. And then on a beautiful Paris afternoon I played my concert to friends and family high up in a side gallery, a capacity crowd below. Did it really happen? That concert on September 7, 1980, at Notre Dame was another one of the experiences of my life that has become a part of me. Music is something that has always been with me. Nearly every note I have ever played takes me to a certain place, reminds me of certain people or events. There have been many intense, personal experiences when I've been transported somewhere else by the sheer pleasure of sound. The most truly joyous moments, however, have come when I have been able to share my talents with others, whether on the most modest of instruments or in the grandest cathedrals. Music has taught me an important lesson: that true happiness comes in giving of yourself, and how blessed I am to have a talent that I can share as a gift with others throughout my life. January 21, 1981: Addendum to 1980 Woodruff Essay After a call from mom yesterday I realized that I left out a few things. I'm sure I will continue to remember experiences that I would like to add to the list. I would be happy to receive from family members other items to make the list more complete. Examples: Mom says that Mary Stewart said that I couldn't start playing the organ until I was older, when my hands were bigger and my legs could reach the pedals. She thought I would just be frustrated. She was probably right! Dad used to play oboe, but mostly he played harmonica and sang. One of our best duets (harmonica and piano) was "Listen to the Mockingbird." "When It's Springtime in the Rockies" also got in there. I was the pianist for Cub Pack meetings at the Ward. We always did a patriotic song, usually "God Bless America." I had to sit on a folding chair and reach up to about my neck level to play the old upright. My first organ job was playing the little Hammond at Vilate Anderson's house for a Christmas Home Tour. I played "Silver Bells" on the chime stop about 20 times. I was paid $5 for that gig, a lot of money. I bought stamps for my stamp collection with it. In sixth grade I was in a little combo with Adrian Bal and others. We practiced pop tunes that Adrian's dad helped us put together, and we met in the "Little Red School House" at the elementary school. Our best song was "Seems Like Old Times." We made a tape of it and sent it to our "sister" class, somewhere in the state of Washington. Mr. Longfellow was our teacher and was very encouraging of projects such as these. I played piano for the group. When I finished my semester in Salzburg in 1970 I went to Russia for 10 days to hear the Tchaikovsky Competition. While I didn't participate in the music, it was an unforgettable experience hearing the Tchaikovsky piano concerto 12 times (!), and seeing Lenin's body pickled, lying there in state. While in Europe in 1970 I travelled all over Germany and Austria, playing organs. Tom Church and I would look up the Pfarrer, get the keys, and play famous old organs. The most famous organs I played, however, were in Northern Germany. In 1974 I went up to Hamburg to meet Dick Butler (who never showed up!). While in that area I played the organs in Hamburg, Stade, and Steinkirchen. These were not just any organs: these were Schnitger organs that BACH himself had played! I also was privileged to play in Paris at Ste. Clothilde, where Cesar Franck had been organist. I would drop into Parisian cathedrals such as St. Sulpice, Notre Dame, Trinite, and St. Etienne-du-Mont and hear the organists play for mass. These are the churches where the great French organists had played for years-Widor, Guilmant, Dupre, Vierne, etc. On my way home from my mission I stopped in Durham, North Carolina, and visited Jack & Jeannie. I also fell in love with Duke Chapel, and I returned several times to visit and play there. I played Vierne's 2nd symphony on the giant Aeolian organ, when it was about 95 in the church. When the big 4-manual Flentrop was installed in 1978, Kim Gardner and I drove all across the country in Joe Cramer's old Chevy, going through El Paso, Houston, New Orleans, and Atlanta, arriving in Durham to play that concert. In 1979 I made the first of several trips to New England, which I always love doing. I played at the Busch-Reisinger Germanic Museum at Harvard on the Flentrop where E. Power Biggs had been organist for so long. I played at Yale--Dwight Chapel, Woolsey Hall, Harkness Tower. I played at Riverside Church in New York, and National Cathedral in Washington, DC. I'm basically a Westerner, but the East Coast (especially Boston) got in my blood. I've seen my name in lights: On the light board of Valley Bank in Rexburg, Idaho, announcing my concert at St. Anthony Stake Center! I've met famous performers and composers backstage at concerts: Olivier Messiaen, for one, in San Francisco. And I've corresponded with many more: Marie-Claire Alain, Santiago Kastner. It's fun being a celebrity yourself. I think my first substitute organ job, or first job in another church for that matter, was during my senior high school year. I got a call from Eagle Rock Presbyterian (I think), near Occidental. I went down and rehearsed on the old clunker pipe organ. The hymn we sang that morning in the service was "For All the Saints." It was the first time I had ever heard the hymn, and I loved it- I remember that Thursday evening rehearsal, a big fat tenor or baritone, and a friendly lady conductor. They were very complimentary of me at the service. [February 27, 1991] When I was home last time I remembered a funny story. Dad hadn't heard it and thought it was hilarious...! For my 13th birthday in 1963 my mother gave me a surprise subscription to Clavier magazine, a journal for keyboard players. I remember the day the first magazine arrived in a plain brown wrapper. Mom was excited to see my reaction. I opened it up and started leafing through, a little surprised to see pictures of scantily-clad women. Partway through my perusal I asked my mother where this magazine had come from. She told me it was a surprise birthday present, that I would be receiving it for a year, and how did I like it? I showed her a couple of the pages, and she snatched it away from me. Turns out that the magazine service, by mistake, had sent me a subscription to Cavalier, a now-defunct girlie magazine! That was the last copy of Cavalier that arrived. When Clavier started arriving the next month, I wasn't quite as excited. After all, it didn't arrive in a plain brown wrapper. Appendix 3 Some Reminiscences of Lessons with Alexander Schreiner I had the privilege of studying briefly in Salt Lake City with Alexander Schreiner while I was a graduate student in organ performance at Stanford University. My teacher, Herbert Nanney, had studied with Schreiner at UCLA in the 1930's, so there was already an interesting connection and legacy. He gave most of these lessons on a small organ in a practice room downstairs in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square, where he arrived wearing a black cape over his suit coat. At first I was disappointed that the lessons would not be on the Tabernacle organ, but what he imparted was so useful that it didn't matter much what instrument we were working on. I took to him some Bach (Trio sonatas), Vierne symphonies and Pieces de fantaisie, Franck chorales, Dupre Prelude and Fugues, and Mulet "Tu es Petra." We also worked on some hymn improvisations. His lessons were not cheap ($50/hour in 1974), and he was very strict and businesslike. He had the luxury of not having to flatter his students in order to keep them coming back. I appreciated his stern discipline and took very seriously what he had to say. Generally he insisted that I sit very quietly at the keyboard, without any extra body movement or gyrations, which he said were meaningless at the organ. In legato-style music he had me strive for even greater legato, especially in melodies and in pedal lines, almost running certain notes together. One of his favorite themes was the idea of lyricism vs. rhythm, dividing all music roughly into these two categories and calling for a distinct difference in interpretation of both. He was very unforgiving about inconsistent tempi, saying that speeding (as I tended to do in Mulet's "Tu es Petra") was "a sign of immaturity." He spoke often of bowing, of breathing, of orchestral phrasing. He wanted me to cut slightly short the long notes at ends of phrases or pieces: when I held the chord at the end of a Vierne symphony too long once, he shouted "Cut the wind! Cut the wind!" He spoke of people's innate desire to dance during rhythmic music, and said that "the performer's musicality must impress equally the grandmother, the general authority, and the uncultured little nigger boy on the back row." He sang certain lines in order to express what he wanted me to do. I will always treasure the memories of my lessons with him. Fortunately I have his pencil markings, phrasings, and a few comments written in some of my scores. On the title page of my copy of the Vierne 2nd Symphony (which he had studied and played for the composer in 1925 in Paris), he wrote to me: "Heartiest greetings to my young fellow organist, James B. Welch, a grandson (tutorially) of mine. From Alexander Schreiner, son of Louis Vierne and grandson of Cesar Franck tutorially. June 15, 1979, Salt Lake City." |